As if a bottle of blues
were poured into me as if
ragtime clicked my fingers
as if the moan and jump
of jazz slid and jerked
my limbs said yes hips
yes feets keep a movin
movin the fascinating
rhythm a pulse and throb
sidewalks and the forest
of legs horns and engines
rev, doors spin a low
constant hum of voices
and the soloing siren screams
even as the bass never
bottoms out but beats
snappy as if my schmaltzy
heart sings Gershwin loud
enough for you to hear.

Capsule years into the one text that sets
fire to the house. It is less difficult
once the match is struck. Merely bite your lip
until you taste blood, until you lick
the disappointed resolve which hardened beneath
that softest kiss. It's there. Still there. But so
are the other boxes we packed. So is the first
walk your eyes followed. So is the low
voice I pillowed and so
we are offered up in one another's
palms to forgetful fires
or memorable pages--
our fingers snatching corners from
confessional embers.
None of these coals light a person
any less than a letter makes a name
or an hour makes a life. They simply light
our place in line
and in what queue.
A-M, N-Z,
Me / Us / You.

outrunning the avalanche
a faceplant a surrender
then saxophoned by the lip-

cranking foot turns-carvin dude-
i recall the conversation-"you cant fall off a mountain."
i ride the white wiamea into the perilous shorebreak.
downmountain they just tell you
'youre one vivid dreamer son,"
touched, as far they could tell.

the café in Pigalle, you danced
breasts to breasts with Francois
and you, the only woman there
but you were not the most beautiful
you, a cockless stranger, dancing
through a phallocentric world

flamed in red light, your blushes spared
‘They’re not women! You cried
as woman gave head to woman
taking his frustration to her mouth
the stout pipe pressed between her lips
a bull’s horn beneath a black leather mini skirt

repairing her smudged lipstick, she winked
letting you know she ate vagina too
if you dared climb his nyloned legs
and moved him like Johnny Hallyday
pelvis to pelvis in a slow hipped grind
while a kitsch moon ballooned over the Eiffel Tower

I've been looking at ears,
those varied cups of
appreciation. Like snow
flakes or finger prints
no two are alike. Some
truly worthy of poet's praise,
others large and homely.
Yet others, folded and rolled,
softly pink, slightly obscene, not
meant to be seen.

I've been looking at ears,
those varied cups of
appreciation. Like snow
flakes or finger prints
no two are alike. Some
truly worthy of poet's praise,
others large and homely.
Yet others, folded and rolled,
softly pink, slightly obscene, not
meant to be seen.

The story goes that,
in an Iranian village
not long ago, a child,
just a toddler,
wandering away from
others too young to go with their parents
to the fields. Their watcher,
barely more than a child herself,
was distracted by another’s tears,
“only for a second”, but
long enough for legs deceptively reliable
to seek adventure .

Horror, slow and shallow
then bone-deep
stiffens the parents weary from day’s work.
They search their village,
turning neighbours out in
infectious panic. Night comes
but not sleep. Before light the search widens.
Other villages join to hunt the little quarry,
blanched lips whisper of wolves,
bears, careful not to let the frantic
mother hear but she has had those haunting thoughts
already.

Another night,
another day,
some give up
but his parents can’t. A few of the men
go into the high forest, further
and higher still with no sign.
No one speaks the fear they hold.
One more valley, one more cave
and then they hear, yes!
A child's voice, deep in this, one,
last cave.

He is cradled
by a huge she-bear,
gently in the big, clawed limbs.
Milk is freely running
and the boy is fed
and well but, seeing his father,
starts to cry. The bear, fearing danger
for this strange, new baby, tightens
her hold silently staring them down.
The story goes that the child
is retrieved but nothing of the
tender mother bear.
I hope she was allowed to live.

I heard in passing
a comment ‘bout
the Black Square of Malevich.
I know this place.
Do hob nailed boots
still guard it’s cobblestones?
Unlike its red and Russian cousin,
no blood ran in it’s gutters.
Was it the well framed scene
of abstraction’s triumph over form?
Or just a skirmish in the war of art?
Can pointillism flourish
in a world of dithered pixels
1200 to the inch?
And what of Monet’s garden,
bisected by a highway?